COW EATS IN KITCHEN

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27397, 9 July 1954, Page 8

COW EATS IN KITCHEN

PEDIGREE JERSEY HEIFER DEMONSTRATION OF MANNERS "The Press” Special Service WELLINGTON, JULY 8. Cows are seldom noted for their sagacity, but Mr and Mrs H. J. Fourneau have a trim pedigree Jersey heifer on their farm at Pakowhai, which is an exception to her breed. A two-year-old, Darling can “shake hands,” eat carefully off the plate placed on the kitchen table, and neatly take a piece of apple held between the teeth of one of the Fourneau children. Like all pedigree cattle. Darling has a blue-blooded name—Pakowhai Pam’s Fay—but her true title is generally known only to show catalogues. Nine-year-old Diane Fourneau won a number of calf club competitions with Darling last year. The heifer was judged reserve champion at the Royal Show at Invercargill early this year. Travel by road, rail and ship broadened Darling’s views, says Mr Fourneau. On returning to Pakowhai she developed a penchant for wandering into the house and making herself at home in the kitchen, x When she was a relatively small and easily-managed calf the habit was tolerated, but now she is well on the way to becoming a cow the family considers her place is in the paddock. Demonstrating her table manners for a photographer, Darling, her rump wedged between an electric stove and a refrigerator, delicately curled her long tongue around apple quarters placed on a plate. The apple finished, the heifer made a most un-lady-like lunge for the sugar-basin but was restrained in the nick of time.

With a single gulp she disposed of an apple left lying on the sink-top, nervously cocked a horn at her own reflection in the kitchen window, delicately licked a few drips from the cold-water tap, ancLthen clip-clopped sedately down the hall and out into the sunshine.